State of the Union - October 2013

Plainview

Plainview

I am a sinner.
Sep 11, 2013
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It’s been a little over a month since I’ve launched UnionVGF. Busy would be an understatement. A fun time but still busy. I always have some device in hand so I can keep an eye on the site. I was without a phone for a few hours yesterday and it was a bit uncomfortable. As the time passes it will smooth out.

When I first launched the site I just thought the few of us who were left at Teamxbox would really be the only ones. Now, there’s members I haven’t seen in years that are back and are active in the community. That’s great and more than I thought would happen. Hell, we even have a former community manager that has made his home here.

A week ago today, I enabled Google Analytics on the site to see how everything was going traffic wise and to see where improvements could be made. Below is a screencap of the stats. I don’t have much to compare it to but things like unique visitors and the duration of stay look pretty good to me, in addition to ~132,000 total page views. The average time spent on the site was surprising. I didn’t know how long people stayed on the site but was nice to see it’s not on and off in a minute or two but 15 minutes.

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I think we’re doing well so far. We’ve had a couple of nice giveaways and there will be two quick ones before the next-gen game giveaway starts November 1st. There have been a couple site issues but nothing that we didn’t get through. The community is still growing and hopefully that trend continues.

Thanks for being here everyone!

Plainview
 
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Just shows (like me) people aren't just coming for news but are reading peoples posts and getting involved.
 
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Thanks for all the work you've done on the site, Plainview. People (including me) probably don't appreciate the amount of time Plainview has spent, behind the scenes, to get all of this working, all the kinks worked out, setting up the front page, getting all the affiliates set up, arranging for the new server, etc. We just see the finished product.

It's going very well so far, better than I expected. It's hard to believe it's been less than 6 weeks. It feels like it's been several months. TXB is like a small dot in the rear-view mirror.
 
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Thanks for all of the hard work on creating this community! The 15 minutes avg time spent on this site is probably due to the awesome thought-provoking discussions that take place daily. I for one have no other unique gaming community forum to go to since MLGpro.com's forums are garbage now and TXB was my other forum to go to for gaming news.

No other site provides breaking in-depth gaming news like UGVF and the sense of community is unmatched.

I'm excited for next-gen gaming and where the community goes. I'm ready for new games and new discussions!
 
Everything seems great except the heavy handed modding that we have at the moment. I've never seen so many posts deleted in all my years at TXB. Pretty disappointing imo.
 
Hissatsu said:
Everything seems great except the heavy handed modding that we have at the moment. I've never seen so many posts deleted in all my years at TXB. Pretty disappointing imo.
Click to expand...
Is that a result of the modders or the modees?
 
Z A C K said:
Is that a result of the modders or the modees?
Click to expand...

It's several things.

1. It's a new forum, with new standards. Things that flew at TXB will not fly here. For instance, there was no rule against personal insults at TXB, but there is one here. So, people who are used to having personal insults be a part of the conversation are having to make an adjustment.

2. Mods at TXB were so preoccupied with bot-squashing that they didn't have time to do much actual moderating, so the place often devolved into a free-for-all. While that was entertaining (in the way a reality TV show is entertaining), it also destroyed the ability to have decent conversations, which were continually being derailed by trolling, pointless bickering, and personal attacks. Now that the bots are no longer a problem, the mods have time to intervene in those processes. The gardeners have time to weed, rather than just chase away the varmits.

3. Some of us mods are new and some of us (me in particular) have been a bit overly enthusiastic or aggressive in our moderating at times. I'm just speaking for myself here, but it's been a learning process, and it has taken me a while to find the right balance. I want this place to be a good community, because I care about it, but I know there have been times I have gone overboard. Be patient, I'm trying to get the mix right. If you have anything you want to discuss, just PM me. I'm a fair person and will be happy to listen.

4. What happens sometimes in the post deletions is that someone says something that starts a chain reaction, and in order to clean it up, it's not sufficient to just remove the original post. You have to remove all the follow-ups to it, the ones who are quoting and responding to it, or else people just pick up where they left off. So, a lot of "innocent" posts can get caught in the net.

5. We closed down the tickle fight thread. So now we have all that pent up tickle energy with no place to go. The kind of stuff that went on in that thread (e.g., trolling) isn't okay in the wider forum, and so we get problems.

6. It's console war time, with new consoles only weeks away -- the season of fanboys, in other words. So you're naturally going to see a lot of problems right now (although it's been pretty good overall). Hopefully that will simmer down a few months after launch.
 
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I tend to bounce back and forth between here and GAF, but I do like the smaller communities like this where you can actually remember who people are and get to know them in a way that's much more difficult on a site with 120,000 users.
 
Xbox > PS :banana:

Plain, thanks for the State of the Union. UnionVGF is by far my favorite forum to date. Perfect software for the forum and front page too.

I can't complain about a single thing. Well, maybe one thing....not enough hot chicks post here, just ugly ones like illiniguy :grin:
 
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996 discussions as of 12:16pm on 10/25/13. 4 more to go until the huge 1000 milestone. Holy hell!!!
 
I was a member of TeamXbox since 2004. I never even surpassed 500 posts I don't think, but it was still my favorite online community for talking about games. Thank you very sincerely for keeping this going and doing such a great job with this new site.
 
That we have new people is incredibly encouraging. For a while I've mostly been in very static, sometimes dying community, and now I only do active and (slowly) growing ones including UVGF. It's just so nice to stay in a thriving community.
 
UGF really tapped into what made TXB unique, being the community. This place just captured the fun and chaotic nature of the old country with a stronger and more stable governing system. Plus, no bots. Yet....
 
Where is the December State of the Union? Don't make me spank you Plain.

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